Berlinale Residency Selects 6 Filmmakers

Berlinale Residency Selects 6 Filmmakers

The Berlinale Festival's new international fellowship program, Berlinale Residency, has announced the six filmmakers who have been invited to work on their new projects in Berlin this fall.

Berlinale Residency will help these filmmakers prepare their projects with help from mentors who will offer advice for developing and revising their scripts.

The selected projects will be presented at the Berlinale Co-Production Market and at the Guadalajara Ibero-American Coproduction Meeting in 2013.

The six filmmakers and projects are:

Matías Bize, Chile: The Memory of Water

Rebecca Daly, Ireland: Mammal

Samuel Maoz, Israel: As We Live

Raya Martin, Philippines: New Spain

Rafi Pitts, Iran: Soy Negro

Sacha Polak, Netherlands: Luna

“I would like to wish all of the Berlinale Residency participants a highly creative time in Berlin,” said Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick. “We hope their films will find their way onto the international market and, most importantly, make it into cinemas.”

Full press release below:

First Berlinale Residency Participants Confirmed

Berlinale Residency, the Festival’s new international fellowship programme, is inviting six filmmakers with their latest projects to Berlin for four months, beginning in September 2012, so they can finalize their scripts, and develop production and distribution strategies. An international jury – consisting of Bruno Bettati, producer at Jirafa Films and director of the Valdivia International Film Festival, Chile; Thomas Hailer, Berlinale programme manager, Germany; Simon Ofenloch, commissioning editor at ZDF/Arte, Germany; Michael Werner, chairman of Fortissimo Films, Hong Kong; and Vibeke Windeløv, producer at Windeløv/Lassen, Denmark – have chosen six directors and their projects:

Born in 1979, this director and screenwriter first attracted international attention in 2003 with his feature film debut, Sábado, una película en tiempo real. In 2005 his drama En la cama, which went on to win several awards, celebrated its premiere at the film festival in Locarno.

Rebecca Daly, Ireland: Mammal

Screenwriters: Rebecca Daly and Glenn Montgomery

Producer: Macdara Kelleher, Fastnet Films, Ireland

Rebecca Daly was one of the finalists for the Berlin Today Award at the Berlinale Talent Campus in 2010. She presented her first full-length feature, The Other Side of Sleep, at the film festival in Cannes and many other international film festivals.

Samuel Maoz, Israel: As We Live

Screenwriter: Samuel Maoz

Producer: Michael Weber, Pola Pandora, Germany

Samuel Maoz first made a name for himself as a documentary filmmaker. In 2009 he won the Golden Lion in Venice, among numerous other awards, for Lebanon, his fictional feature debut.

Raya Martin, Philippines: New Spain

Screenwriters: Raya Martin and Norman Wilwayco

Producer: Arleen Cuevas, Cinematografica, Philippines

Born in 1984, this director and screenwriter has made several short and full-length films since 2004. His fictional feature Independencia received support from the World Cinema Fund in 2009 and has screened at a number of international festivals.

Rafi Pitts, Iran: Soy Negro

Screenwriters: Rafi Pitts and Razvan Radulescu

Producers: Thanassis Karathanos, Twenty Twenty Vision, Germany

This Iranian director and screenwriter has won many awards and been invited to participate in the Berlinale Competition twice. The first time he presented Zemestan/It’s Winter (2006); and more recently, Shekarchi/The Hunter (2010), which had received backing from the World Cinema Fund.

Sacha Polak, Netherlands: Luna

Screenwriter: Helena van der Meulen

Producer: Marleen Slot, Viking Film, Netherlands

Since 2006, this 29-year-old director has made several short films. In 2010, she participated in the Berlinale Talent Campus. In 2012, she presented her first feature-length drama, Hemel, in the BerlinaleForum and won the FIPRESCI Prize.

Berlinale Residency would like to help these filmmakers prepare and package their projects for the market: individually selected mentors from the Nipkow programme will be on hand to advise fellowship holders on developing and revising their scripts. And in a “Script to Market” seminar with market experts, the producers and directors will explore the audience potential of their works.

The selected projects will be presented at the Berlinale Co-Production Market (February 10-12, 2013) and/or at the Guadalajara Ibero-American Coproduction Meeting in March 2013.

The Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg is supporting the Berlinale Residency initiative within the scope of its Berlin 24/7 programme, which offers work fellowships in the German capital for international filmmakers.

“I would like to wish all of the Berlinale Residency participants a highly creative time in Berlin,” says Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick. “We hope their films will find their way onto the international market and, most importantly, make it into cinemas.”

The Berlinale Residency is an initiative of the Berlin International Film Festival, the Nipkow Programme and the Guadalajara International Film Festival in cooperation with the MEDIA Mundus programme of the European Union and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.